Deadline Missed, Navy Has To Start Over On Buying Subs, Choppers: Report

India had last month announced a plan to procure 110 combat jets for the Air Force.

India has missed the deadline for issuing tenders to procure submarines and naval helicopters after approvals for Indian Navy’s three major procurement programs lapsed in the last 10 months, according to people with knowledge of the development.

The navy will need begin afresh the process for buying the submarines worth $7.5 billion and helicopters worth $5 billion, they said, asking not to be identified as the information is not yet public. The approvals for procurement, issued by the Defence Acquisition Council, is valid for six months within which the tenders must be issued.

The development is a set back to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s $250-billion military modernization plan to arm the south Asian nation’s defense forces with state-of-the-art military hardware at a time when threats from neighbors China and Pakistan are rising. It also delays the government’s plan to boost domestic manufacturing of defense equipment as part of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ plan.

The programs were to be taken up under the new ‘Strategic Partnership’ policy that aims to obtain technologies from foreign vendors and produce military platforms and equipment domestically. New Delhi’s defense spending rose by 5.5 percent to $63.9 billion in 2017, placing the country among world’s top…